I always know what I'm going to write before I sit down.

I don't mind being distracted.

My favourite book - 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford, which I have read about 20 times - is different from my favourite author, who is Iris Murdoch. I find her books exciting and unputdownable. Her characters are so carefully studied and in-depth; I love that.

I knew quite a lot about politics before I went to Parliament.

I always write about subjects which attract me because if I didn't, it would be awful, a failure.

I do write about obsession, but I don't think I have an obsession for writing. I'm not a compulsive writer. I like to watch obsession in other people, watch the way it makes them behave.

I have a soft spot for charities that help children.

I'm not much of an eater.

I don't think the world is a particularly pleasant place.

I think that all women, unless they are absolutely asleep, must be feminists up to a point.

I'm a very bad Christian, but I am a Christian.

I do think that being a sort of celebrity and being well off does give me some responsibility. I think that people who make a lot of money - and I do - should certainly give a considerable amount of it away.

I always write about what interests me.

Women's rights are more important than their ethnic rights.

I think we all fear appearing foolish in public. We don't want to be laughed at.

'The Da Vinci Code' was pretty awful. A good idea disappointingly handled.

Crimes are more often committed out of fear than wickedness. People live frightened, desperate lives.

Why do we have to have violence, torture, brutality in crime dramas every time we turn on television? Any new crime drama is going to have, sooner or later, a lot of torture and nasty things that make people flinch. Lots of young people I know shrink and flinch from that kind of thing on television, so I think showing it is a mistake.

Reading is becoming a kind of specialist activity, and that strikes terror into the heart of people who love reading.

People do sometimes ask me some really idiotic questions: 'Is your husband afraid of you putting arsenic in his food?' I replied that I have never written a book about poison, ever.

I really am not affected by the tragic aspects of my books.

It makes me actually quite angry to think about people writing about torture with a sort of relish. Horrible.

Suspense is my thing. I think I am able to make people want to keep turning pages. They want to know what happens. So I can do that.

I don't find writing easy. That is because I do take great care: I rewrite a lot. If anything is sort of clumsy and not possible to read aloud to oneself, which I think one should do... it doesn't work.